Courtmaster: Hamburger AAs

Hear ye, hear ye! Court is back in session, and it's time to rule on McDonalds' All-Americans. I'll save my ruling on the McDonalds' double quarter-pounder combo for another column.

One of the more popular methods used to try and objective
evaluate a school’s
effectiveness in attracting blue-chip recruits is to track how many Mickey
D high-school All-Americans they sign. First, let’s see which ones are
on current ACC rosters. All information in this analysis was obtained from
the official
McDonald’s All-American web site.

Why is
the ACC consistently among the best conferences in the nation? For one, no
school outside the conference currently has more than two McDonald’s
All-Americans on its roster. Second, no other conference approaches the total
of 17 ACC schools have. The Big East, with eight, is closest.

We have all heard
the story about how Michael Jordan was cut from his high school team, but he
did earn this level of recognition. Juan Dixon and Len
Bias, the
greatest players in Maryland history, did not. Buzz Peterson, best known as
Michael Jordan’s friend while playing for North Carolina, was a McDonald’s
All-American. Tim Duncan, last season’s NBA MVP and a Wake Forest alumnus,
was not. Georgia Tech’s second and third all-time leading scorers, Matt
Harpering and Mark Price, were not McDonald’s All-Americans. The top
three NCAA all-time assist leaders, Bobby Hurley of Duke, Chris Corchiani or
NC State,
and Ed Cota of North Carolina, all were.

Does anyone remember Ricky Jones of
Clemson, Greg Koubek of Duke, Lamarr Greer of Florida State, Darryl Barnes
of Georgia Tech, Pete Holbert of Maryland,
Kevin Madden of North Carolina, Norman Nolan of Virginia, and Glen Mayers of
Wake Forest.
I didn’t think so, despite the fact that they were all McDonald’s
All-Americans.

Historically, here is by my count how many each school has signed
going back to the first year this designation was made in 1977:

North Carolina-45,
Duke-34, Maryland-14, Georgia Tech-13, Virginia-9, NC State-8, Wake Forest-7,
Florida State-7, Clemson-4. While not an absolute indicator,
these numbers are fairly representative of each school’s relative success
over the last 27 years. Gary Williams was able to win a National Championship
in 2002
at Maryland without a McDonald’s All-American, but the Terps are the
only team in the nation to accomplish that feat since McDonalds began naming
All-Americans.

By the way, Matt Doherty was a McDonald’s All-American,
but none of the current ACC coaches were. I’m not sure what that means,
but I thought I’d
throw it in anyway.

Question for the Jury:

Who are some of the most overrated and/or underrated
recruits you can remember playing for your favorite ACC team? Let me know by
e-mail at thecourtmaster@aol.com.

The most popular answer to my last question,
what out-of-conference games would you like to see ACC teams play, was a Kansas-North
Carolina matchup. I would
also put this at the top of my list, but it will not happen. There is no way
Roy Williams will ever agree to that. UCLA and Indiana were other popular choices
for OOC opponents.

My favorite suggestion was from a reader who wants to see
the ACC-Big East Challenge (held for two years in the early 1990’s) revived.
While I’m
perfectly happy with the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, a series of games against Big
East opponents
would have a lot of juice after the recent conference realignment. Alas, this
is not likely to take place anytime in the near future. Of course, if ESPN
waves enough money in front of both conferences, well, I think you already
know the
answer to that.

CourtMaster Briefs:

In Tuesday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, columnist
Mark Bradley listed his “what if” Top 20 for this season. He analyzed
what the top teams in the nation would look like if everyone who signed letters
of intent
with a
school actually enrolled and played four years. Bradley included players like
Amare Stoudemire (Memphis), Kwame Brown (Florida), and Eddy Curry (DePaul)
who never played a minute for schools they committed to.

Interestingly, Duke
is the highest rated team in this listing at only #14. Their roster would not
have any changes in this scenario, and Bradley correctly
surmises
that a number of teams would move past them if their rosters had stayed intact.
Georgia Tech, keeping Chris Bosh, is a tad overrated at #16, while Maryland,
with senior Chris Wilcox, is underrated at #17. North Carolina, also with no
changes to its roster, was ranked #20. Michigan State, Connecticut, Memphis,
St. John’s (whoa), and Syracuse comprised Bradley’s top five.

Georgia
Tech dominated a short-handed Louisiana-Lafayette team Tuesday night in their
NIT first round match. The Ragin’ Cajuns (major props for a cool
nickname) were missing five players including former Tech signee center Michael Southall. All were suspended due to academic issues. Anthony McHenry drew the
call to start up front for the undersized Yellow Jackets, who sport a three-guard
lineup including B. J. Elder, Marvin Lewis, and Jarrett Jack. McHenry, 6’7,
220 pounds, will need to help 7’1” Luke Schenscher establish some
type of presence near the basket on both ends of the court.

It looks like Duke
with also open the season with a small starting lineup. Rather than bring Daniel
Ewing off the bench, Coach K is expected to start
him along
with J. J. Redick and Chris Duhon while playing Luol Deng at power forward
and Shelden Williams at center. For now, this leaves Shavlik Randolph and Nick Horvath
on the bench along with Sean Dockery is what should be the Blue Devil’s
eight-man rotation.

Freshman Mike O’Donnell will apparently open the season
as NC State’s
starting point guard. Coach Sendek says, “Mike is somebody who has really
hit the floor running.” Teammate Julius Hodge commented,”The little
dude is a warrior.” Time will tell if he can prove me and many other
prognosticators wrong when we named his position as a major weakness for the
Wolfpack.

Following up on an item I mentioned last week, point guard Sean Singletary
did officially sign his letter-of-intent with Virginia, apparently ending any
chance
for Majestic Mapp to return next season.